chronicles of an igorot in australia. a photoblog in parts, this is intended as a diary, travelogue, memoir, journal, palimpsest, igorot blog, accounts of misadventures, running battles or whatever it turns out to be. there might be souls out there with common interests. do post a comment.

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Thursday, 28 October 2010

Rated R. Like a rolling stone

Rolling Stone (Australian edn). October 2010

I was flicking through the pages of this issue, came to page 5 and then checked the cover and name of the magazine. It definitely was Rolling Stone.
It was an eye opener of sorts. There's more of the same in the pages of the magazine.

But the point of this post is the real eye-opener: the article on international affairs featuring the capitalists cashing in on global warming. If we did not know it yet – they’ve been around for decades now, in Baguio and elsewhere – Chinese and South Koreans involved in the global land grab, are buying up farmlands, properties, and real estate in the Philippines, with a little help from their friends or agents in government.

The people in the uplands (Applai) of the Philippine Cordillera know the best policy here – never sell. The 30 pesos of saliva is worth just that. The Igorot leader from Kalinga Macli-ing Dulag said it before: "you do not own the land, the land owns you..." or words to that effect.*

The moral of the story?
Cordillera land is restricted. It is sacred...
Tell the Chinese, Koreans, foreign nationals or government officials representing them directly or indirectly, and all other outsiders with malicious intent-
The land of the Igorots is not for sale!

* A source cites that when an army survey team asked the Kalingas for titles to their ancestral land, Dulag was reported to have replied:
"You ask us if we own the land. And mock us, 'Where is your title?' Such arrogance of owning the land when you shall be owned by it. How can you own that which will outlive you?"